And my hypothesis is the China did it as a favor to the US. But I can't prove it. And neither can you.

If I had mod points, I'd rate that funny, even though it cannot be proven false.

Also, most of us, including Obama, don't live in a forest or jungle.

That said, I mainly consider the statement defamatory to monkeys. People are the ones who are loose with words.

If you do it on purpose, yes.

I do not presume that all lies are reprehensible. But intentionally misleading someone is a lie. Some times, however, staying silent isn't a real option, and speaking honestly would be injurious (to someone, perhaps yourself).

OTOH, false and defamatory statements *are* always reprehensible, even if the entity you are commenting about is excessively vile. And true statements can never be defamatory, except to a lawyer or a judge.

That's not Occam's razor, that's "Cui Bono?". Occam's razor says to not multiply entities excessively. But the problem isn't multiplying entities here, it's that there are already too many visible entities to reach a single conclusion. We know that the US govt. exists, that Sony exists, that lots of hacker collectives exist, that...etc. We don't know which are significant. We *do* know that all of the above are quite willing to lie when it suits their interests.

Pick a collection of known facts and make a hypothesis that you can't invalidate. Occam's razor won't help you pare things down, because the known facts support too many plausible stories. And NONE of them are testable. So don't believe your own story, or anyone else's. Realize that the story you choose to accept in this instance says more about you than about what happened, and don't believe it. You can't always know what actually happened. There are too many liars and too many suspects.

Will they be prosecuted? Perhaps they got indemnity first.

The story I build around this has the Sony episode as a bit part in something centered around South Korea's nuclear piles. And Obama *was* talking to some diplomats from China right before this started, and China is N.Korea's Internet supplier.

I *know* that my version is just a story. But I also realize that that's all everyone's version is, except those with inside information. Most of the latter aren't talking, and the ones that are have a reputation for lying.

Yes/No. When you can build stronger materials under computer control, then computers allow you to build smaller/lighter airplanes.

OTOH, it isn't the computer itself that facilitates the improvement, its the computer as a part of an improved process, that couldn't be improved (that way) without the computer.

So. Currently 3D printers are toys. Did you ever even see the Sinclair computer? (I forget its model.) It was a toy. But that didn't make it totally useless, and other computers were not only much more useful, they became both more useful and smaller and cheaper over time.

P.S.: There *do* exist 3D printers that aren't toys. They also aren't cheap, and the ones I've information on aren't small. But different models can print in Titanium, Aluminium, Concrete, etc. I don't know whether they all require hand finishing, I expect so. OTOH, this is early days yet.

Do you know how long the laser was called "The development looking for a use?" It was over a decade. Of course, the original lasers were big, expensive, and difficult to use. They required specially polished rubies, cryonic conditions, and they only worked on microwaves. They were also called masers, but that word has dropped out of existence, so now we have uv lasers, ir lasers, green lasers, and for all I know X-ray lasers.

I doubt that CNC machines will ever drop out of use. I expect that they'll continue to become easier to use. But they won't be used for small runs for much longer. Already Car companies use expensive 3D printers to print their design prototypes, and I'm sure there are many uses I haven't heard of.

Discreet mathematique are the basis for computing

Not at the semiconductor junction level.

You are confusing computing with computers. Indeed, a "computer" used to be a human being implementing algorithms with a mechanical adding machine, and then were tube-based electrical systems, and in the future may use something wholely other than semiconductors; computing, however, remains the same. A bubble sort is still a bubbble sort.

But then how would you run it in a browser?

It's not required, no. At least not anymore, not sure if it used to be. The self-contained installer is sufficient to develop with.

I do, actually. Well, they're more partners than customers, since we give them our code and they sell it. But, yes, I have a lot of meetings with outside parties. We convince about half of them to join our Hangouts from their laptops, the others we add to the meeting via phone. Outside of meetings, we communicate entirely via e-mail. Voicemail is still irrelevant.

At IBM, my role was entirely customer-facing. Voicemail was still fairly rare, though teleconferences were the norm. Most communication was, again, via e-mail or face to face.

Learn from the past. Iraqui defectors swore up and down that there were massive nuclear programs. They were physicists, they were believable, they testified in secret, in public, on TV. None of it mattered, they were proven liars after we invaded.

Claims from defectors require extraordinary evidence, especially when what's coming out of their mouths is what the government or the intel agencies want to hear.

On the one hand you're talking about war profiteering, and on the other hand I think you're talking about a government-run helicopter operation, which typically is provided free of charge. I honestly do not understand your analogy here. I'm not suggesting that the army should charge people to airlift them out of disasters. I'm saying that private individuals who have no duty to respond to disasters be allowed to charge for doing so, which results in more assistance being provided rather than less.

Everybody is desperate. Without money we starve, freeze, and so on. The solution to that is basic income so that we can all afford to live, not to create shortages by pricing things below market value. There shouldn't be desperate people in the first place, and with taxes there is no reason we can't afford to take care of everybody.

They can just send a letter. Last time I checked you didn't need a plan to do that.

The problem with this is that US states are not allowed to interfere with interstate commerce, control immigration, etc. So, your model really only works if you have a very liberal mindset of anybody can possess anything they want to possess (no controls on drugs, guns, etc), and no significant amount of socialism.

If you want to ban all guns in your state, then you'll need border controls to prevent the flow of guns from states where they aren't completely banned. If you want to have strong worker protection laws in the manufacturing sector, then you need to be able to charge tariffs on goods produced elsewhere that did not have to comply with those laws. If you want to have basic income, then you need to be able to place tariffs on good produced in places that don't have basic income, and heavily tax anybody who wants to leave your state. All of these sorts of things are prohibited by the US constitution, which is why all these kinds of issues tend to become federal issues.